Episode 1295: The 120-Percent Podcast
Date November 12, 2018 ' '''Summary ''Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Jose Altuve and other players claiming to give (much) more than 100 percent and Joe Mauer’s retirement and Hall of Fame case, then answer listener emails about Shohei Ohtani’s future role, whether Mike Trout could go contact-for-contact with Willians Astudillo, a baseball romance novel, winning a World Series MVP award without hitting, whether improved pitcher hitting could correct the so-called strikeout scourge, a 60-WAR season vs. 60 one-WAR seasons (and the theoretical single-season WAR maximum), the effects of bigger bases, and teams with no “qualifying” pitchers, plus a Stat Blast about Mallex Smith and the hitters who’ve sprinted their way to extra offensive value. Topics * Shohei Ohtani usage * World series MVP due to defense * Rule changes hypothetical * Mike Trout and Willians Astudillo hypothericals * 50 shades of baseball? * Pitcher batting hypothetical * Max WAR in one year * Changing base sizes * Dodgers lack of ERA title qualifiers Intro Ken Ashcorp, "20 Percent Cooler" Outro Manny, "210 Percent" Banter * Jose Altuve coming back at 120 % * Several athletes giving more than 100 percent * Joe Mauer retirement Email Questions * Simon (Portland): On the subject of Shohei Ohtani, should there be some discussion of deploying him in a different manner, once he’s fully recovered from Tommy John surgery? The Steamer projections were recently released on Fangraphs, and I was somewhat surprised to see Ohtani projected to be something like the 12th best hitter in baseball next year (sorting by wRC+ at least). Steamer likes him to slash .272/.353/.512 with 31 homers. That’s basically his line from this year, with a few more chances. Anyway, it got me thinking that if that’s really the type of offensive player Ohtani would be with regular at bats, might he be better deployed as an everyday hitter and shutdown reliever? I’m imagining some sort of Freddie Freeman/Josh Hader hybrid. Is this a viable strategy to both protect the health of his arm and get the most value out of his bat? Steamer projects Ohtani to generate 3.1 WAR next year just as a DH. In 51 innings this year, he generated 1.0 WAR. What if he were allowed to air it out in one or two-inning stints like Hader (2.7 WAR). I’d argue they have similar stuff, with Ohtani’s repertoire being a bit better. You’re looking at a 6 WAR player who contributes on both sides of the ball, and that’s not even considering he might have some value on defense if he’s allowed to try. What do you guys think? * Ryan Deal (Patreon): The Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks just won another Japan Series, with 25-year-old catcher Takuya Kai winning Series MVP. Kai had a .143/.200/.143 slash for the series and was pinch-hit for in the decisive game, but set an NPB record by throwing out all 6 Hiroshima Carp that attempted to steal a base. A quick analysis of past World Series MVP winners shows that every hitter to win has had strong offensive numbers; what sort of defensive performance do you think would be necessary for such a bad hitter to be the World Series MVP? * Clark Bundy (Patreon): It's the offseason - my favorite time of year to listen to Effectively Wild, when you deep dive into completely ridiculous hypotheticals. So here's my first one: Suppose Major League Baseball takes note of the incredible popularity of Willians Astudillo, and decides to emphasize balls in play over the Three True Outcomes. Thus, the following rule changes are made: -Strikeouts count for two outs (to encourage batters to put the ball in play) -Five balls for a walk (to discourage taking pitches) -Balls hit over the fence in the air are no longer home runs, but simply a ground rule double. (To discourage swinging for the fences) -One defender is removed from the game (so more balls in play become hits) In this world, would Willians Astudillo be the best hitter in the game? He would get more hits with one fewer defender, but wouldn't be penalized by the bigger strikeout penalties, harder-to-get walks, and smaller home run bonus. Or would a "better" player like Mike Trout be able to retool his swing to put the ball in play more, cut out those strikeouts, and overtake Astudillo? * Evan: Imagine that, inspired by Willians Astudillo, Mike Trout's only goal for a season is to have the highest contact rate he can. What would his contact rate be, and how many wins would he be worth? Assume some reasonable minimum number of swings, so he can't just make contact once and take every pitch for the rest of the season. * Gianna: WHAT IS THIS? So I was reading a book today and I saw a paragraph in it and I just had to send to you guys. Can you guys please explain. (followed by book exerpt) * Mark: What with talk of "fixing" the game and the understanding that an analytically effecient game (3 true outcomes, etc.) is a less entertaining game, I'm wondering if there's a hypothetical improvement to pitcher batting that fixes some of that. Obviously an improvement in pitcher batting would not be an overnight adjustment, but let's say that from the lowest level of Little League on up through college and the minor leagues, pitchers are required to spend more time on hitting. More time on hitting would obviously mean less time on pitching, and therefore a decrease in pitcher quality - probably. As it stands, pitchers are pretty much always an easy out, the Madison Bumgarners (& 2-way players) of the world notwithstanding. My question is: in a hypothetical world where pitchers are better hitters, how good would they need to be at hitting (or bad at pitching) before the "excitement" of baseball bounces back a bit? I'm not saying they're suddenly worth batting in the middle of the lineup or anything, but definitely of much higher quality than they are currently. Does adjusting the performance of pitchers solve some of the problems with the game? People love pitchers hitting because it's such a novelty, but what if it weren't? What if they were no worse hitters than a bottom of the order position player hitter normally is? Would the AL dump the DH? * Bobby: Which player is more likely to get inducted into the hall of fame: a player who gets 60 WAR in one season and then his career ends, or a player who gets exactly 1 WAR every year for 60 seasons? * Donald: Thinking about rules changes that could create incentives for differing styles of play, I started thinking about the size of the bases. When people talk about changing the size of the diamond there is resistance - 90 feet is a nice round number, follows baseball's multiples of threes pattern, and is ingrained in all our heads. But getting from one base to the next isn't really 90 feet, it is the 87.5 feet from the edge of one base to the edge of the next. Nearly doubling the size of the base from sides of 15 inches to 21 inches would reduce the distance between bags by just over 1% - not enough to radicalize the game, but enough that it would increase BABIP, stolen base success rates, successful takings of extra bags, all leading to a more dynamic game. It would also help protect first basemen from getting spiked (when the spiking is accidental, anyway). It would change the aesthetics, but would be less objectionable to traditionalists, as I think 15 inches is less ingrained than 90 feet. * Ed: 1. I noticed the Dodgers led the league in team ERA this year despite not having any pitchers who qualified for the ERA title. (Kershaw came painfully close with 161.1 IP.) Has this ever happened before? I would be surprised if it had. Stat Blast * Out of the 287 players with 1000 plate appearances in the last 4 years, the player who is the biggest underachievers using wOBA minus expected wOBA are slow guys. * The player who most over performed this are Mallex Smith, second is Dee Gordon. * Mike Trout leads all of these players in wOBA, David Ortiz leads in expected wOBA. Notes * Ricky Davis had to get hurt to come back at 130 percent. * Francisco Rodriguez gives 140 percent when booed. * Kevin Mitchell wanted to give 180 percent to both the Mariners and Giants. * Glenallen Hill once said he needed to give 190 percent. * “Do you think guys give any amount of percent that isn't an increment of 10, no that would just be ridiculous” * “Do you think his elbow broke because he gave 200 percent” - Ben on Mark Prior * This year the NL strikeout rate was 22.6%, the AL strikeout rate was 21.9%. * A team having no pitchers qualify for ERA title has only happened 21 times. Links https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/effectively-wild-episode-1295-the-120-percent-podcast/ Link to Jay’s Mauer post Link to story on the 1957 A’s Link to Sam on the ERA title innings minimum Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes